


stars

by Wino



Series: The Darcy fix no one asked for [7]
Category: Marvel Cinematic Universe, The Avengers (Marvel Movies), Thor (Movies)
Genre: Darcy needs a hug, F/F, Jane needs a hug, MerMay, and they have OSSS, late mermay, mermaid!darcy, mermaids are magpies, souls are shiny
Language: English
Status: Completed
Published: 2017-06-13
Updated: 2017-06-13
Packaged: 2018-11-13 17:57:58
Rating: Teen And Up Audiences
Warnings: No Archive Warnings Apply
Chapters: 1
Words: 2,781
Publisher: archiveofourown.org
Story URL: https://archiveofourown.org/works/11190342
Author URL: https://archiveofourown.org/users/Wino/pseuds/Wino
Summary: And while Jane watched the stars, Darcy watched Jane.





	stars

**Author's Note:**

  * For [bloomsoftly](https://archiveofourown.org/users/bloomsoftly/gifts).



> So, this is my work for [bloomsoftly](http://archiveofourown.org/users/bloomsoftly/pseuds/bloomsoftly) (hoping you like it, honey). She's having a rough week so I hope this cheers you up a bit.  
> This was born for mermay, and it was _actually ready_ for it on May 31st, but due to my laziness it stayed firmly on paper, destined to be forgotten. It respawned because the amazing [Dresupi](http://archiveofourown.org/users/Dresupi/pseuds/Dresupi) helped me to surprise bloom (were you surprised?). Thank you so, so much for your help with this!
> 
> So, I hope you enjoy the ride :)

Souls were, all in all, a very colourful thing.

Everybody had one, regardless of belief. Everybody needed one, but they pretended they were a big affair.

To Darcy, who had been able to see souls since forever, they were nothing but coloured dots floating inside of very cute packages, depending on the person they belonged to.

They were a trinket -- if you will -- to be observed and admired until otherwise needed, and that usually came after death.

And it was Truth.

So she wasn't really prepared for the shiny golden aura surrounding Dr Jane Foster, astrophysicist.

It was blinding, overwhelming and beautiful; Darcy kinda wanted it.

Mermaids were suckers for shiny, glittering things, not unlike dragons (but let's be real, dragons were just rude lizards...), and they showed it by collecting the oddest things and showing off as much jewelry they could get away with (and with the long tails they had, it was a _lot_ ).

It probably wasn't possible to collect a soul, Darcy had never tried to anyway, but she unconsciously gravitated towards it regardless.

She started showering Jane with food and pop-tarts, content to bask in the golden light that was Jane Foster, and that was that.

* * *

 

New Mexico sucked and chafed at her skin for all the wrong reasons.

She was used to sand, but not hot sand and frankly the dry heat was disgusting and so was the sun (you stupid star, you!) and the only respite were the frequent showers she was able to take (who cared about hot water anyway).

She was sick and tired of it all after six days, and ordered an inflatable kiddie pool after ten.

* * *

 

“Jane! _Jane!_ ”

Jane Foster blinked owlishly at her friend and mentor, Erik Selvig. He looked pale and was waving frantically at her.

“What? _And why are you whispering_?” She mimicked his tone.

“ _There's a mermaid in a wading pool on your roof_!”

“...What?” What time was it anyway? Was she drunk? Was _he_ drunk?

But Erik kept gesticulating wildly to the roof. She sighed deeply and followed.

There was a shiny, bronze tail peeking from an inflatable yellow plastic pool that she was certain hadn't been there last she checked.

She gaped, turned to Erik, pointed to the pool and gaped again.

Erik nodded solemnly.

“There's a mermaid in a kiddie pool on my roof.” She repeated dumbly and then flinched at her friend's shushing noises.

“The mermaid can hear you,” came sarcastically from the pool.

Wait a minute, she knew that voice.

“...Darcy?!”

* * *

 

“So...” Jane was going to be cool about it, cool as cucumber. “You're a mermaid?”

The tail in front of her flapped a bit jokingly and the caudal fin splashed her with salt water. “...Did you use the kitchen salt for this?”

“Yes, and yes!” Darcy confirmed airily.

“You're a mermaid, honest to God mermaid.”

“Yes.”

“A real mermaid?” that was Erik.

“ _Yes_ ,” and now Darcy sounded exasperated. “Look, it's not a big deal...”

“Not a- Not a big deal?!” Jane asked faintly. “Darcy, you have a tail, scales, and let's not forget the fact that _you're a mermaid_.”

Darcy clicked her tongue, pushed her weight on her arms and managed to take a sitting position, her tail folded neatly under her. “I think we've already established that I am, indeed, a mermaid Jane. And the amount of times the word 'mermaid'  has been used in the last five minutes should be illegal.” She stood wobbly on the side of the inflatable pool and rolled out of it. Under the sun of New Mexico, her skin dried at an incredible speed and the more it dried up, the more her scales disappeared.

Erik sputtered indignantly.

* * *

 

From then on, any time Jane wasn't on her data and calculations and pictures, she spent with Darcy, pelting her with questions.

It wasn't so bad, Darcy mused, at least Jane didn't complain when the salt disappeared or that she hogged the pool for herself.

“So, you have a different civilization?”

“Uh-uh”

“And different technology?”

“That's correct.”

She'd been extremely disappointed when she'd heard that no, there were no astronomers. “Jane, we don't even see the stars from our home. We hardly see the sun! We don't even _like it._ I mean!” she stuttered quickly, “it's beautiful and all, but it's so far away and there's places in the sea we haven't yet explored, why go up when you can go down?”

Jane was very curious about it all. Favorite foods (We eat fish eggs and algae, Jane, there's not much I can cook for you in New Mexico) and cultural differences (well no we don't have internet and I don't know how I'll live without Tumblr, but we _do_ have sound based tech...) and literature (we have a crap-ton of myths you don't have Janey, we're a completely different species).

And then...

“You haven't explored the world?” Jane couldn't really wrap her mind about not exploring any part of the world they lived in.

“No?” Darcy smiled patiently, “There are places we couldn't go even if we wanted. Like the Arctic” she said matter of factly.

“Too cold?”

“Nah, we used to live there, but then something started zapping our tails off seventy years or so ago.” She shuddered. “We don't go there anymore, the energy is sick, like a disease just waiting to chip off your life.”

And again,

“So, stop me if it's too personal, but...” They were lounging on the roof. Well, _she_ was lounging. Jane was sitting on a chair, with her head propped on her hands as she leaned closer, “How does even 'it' work?” she blushed furiously, “I mean...”

Darcy raised her eyebrows as much as she could, then gave a pointed look to her legs and looked at her.

“Oh.”

“Yeah, oh.” she nodded, amused, and went back to her fruit juice.

“Where does the tail come from then?!” Jane asked bewildered.

Darcy made a long, loud noise with the plastic straw. “We reproduce like plants, cut a limb and wait for it to grow and take root-”

“WHAT!”

“...I'm kidding Jane,” she deadpanned, “It's act-Ow! Ow! Stop it!” she laughed as Jane mock hit her with her chair's pillow. The fruit juice dropped on the ground unceremoniously.

She pouted at the loss of her juice. It was good juice.

“Seriously, Darcy!”

Darcy cleared her throat “Look, it's a lot like fish, okay? Eggs and all...” She was a bit uncomfortable with the subject.

Jane blinked. “That sounds anticlimactic.”

“Well, it's not exactly like that,” She shrugged helplessly; maternity wasn't high on her priority list, “there's a lot of stuff involved, like emotions and hormones and magic... it's a big mumbo jumbo you actually need to take a class for?”

“Magic.” Jane said skeptically.

“Well yes, that's normal, right? No magic, no baby and all that.”

“That's... sorry, but the scientist in me refuses to believe _magic_ is responsible for fish tails.”

“And then you can go to Atlantis and tell our people that we've been _doing this wrong_ since the dawn of times. Have fun with the Chief.” Darcy sassed back.

“...Atlantis is real.”

“JANE!”

* * *

 

Diametrically different from Jane, Erik had instead become a very tough customer.

He refused the cookies and the food Darcy offered and ate meals with them grudgingly.

Darcy couldn't really fault him for this, he'd grown up with tales and horror stories of merpeople just waiting to drown unsuspecting sailors. He wasn't _wrong_ theoretically, but it'd been some 3000 years or so that they'd last done so (not keen on becoming stone and sinking in the ocean, no sirree) and Darcy liked to think they'd come a long way from that.

The big monument made of hundreds of sunken sisters wasn't the reason, nope.

She didn't really understand how the story had been remembered _as long_ as it was. They'd stopped caring about the ‘living stuff’ ages ago.

“Why are you here?” He asked her out of the blue one day, when Jane was distracted by whatever thingy was pinging and making funny noises.

Darcy turned and looked at him, confused. “I'm studying political science.”

“Yes. “ He said a bit more forcefully, “but that doesn't explain why you're _here_. I don't believe this was your only choice.”

Darcy's gaze flitted immediately to Jane. Beautiful, shiny Jane.

“She's shiny.” She responded automatically.

Erik's eyes widened and hardened in three seconds. “What does that mean? Do you wish her harm?”

Darcy frowned. “Of course not. She's shiny, not food. I don't know where you're getting your ideas from, but the deadly singers were all turned into stone something like three thousand years ago and we like it that way.” The corners of her mouth lifted a bit, “I just like looking at her soul.”

Erik gaped. “You look at her soul.”

Darcy nodded. “Yours too, but hers is shinier.” And she said it with complete nonchalance.

“You can see souls.”

“What's with this incredulity at everything I say?” she complained. “Souls are _the whole point of our existence_. The Guides to the Other Side is not a fancy title, we'd suck if we didn't know where to send people off. Like, really suck. Imagine the mess.”

Erik had nothing to say to that, but sent her particularly pensive looks in the next few days.

And then, the Star-man happened.

* * *

 

Darcy watched Thor as he moved around the gas station that had become her home.

He _smelled._ Like, 'look at me I come from the sky' smelled. He was pleasant to look at but Laeto have mercy, it made all of her insides tingle the wrong way.

Jane and Erik didn't believe for a second that he came from the sky, but she did.

And it was fine.

The presence of a Star-man didn't fill her with joy or any other fuzzy feeling, but she could ignore it.

She could pretend the presence of a race that had heralded the coming of the Cold ones and the near destruction of her people didn't scare her witless, she could play nice.

What she could not tolerate was the fact that he had started gravitating around the shiniest soul in the house: Jane.

Because Jane's light was hers. She'd claimed it.

The Asgardian had no right to come and take it away from her.

She found herself showing him her teeth dangerously whenever she could get away with it every time he approached Jane, or got too close. As soon as the tiny astrophysicist turned her back here she was, hissing.

She wasn't stupid. She knew that even without his full strength Thor was completely out of her league, so much powerful it wasn't even funny. If a Challenge were to be issued, Darcy had no delusions to win. She'd have no chance, but she couldn't help it. This was her territory.

Erik had noticed that, and was torn between amusement and worry.

Jane was oblivious, but Thor had noticed.

* * *

 

“I know not what ails you, Lady Darcy.” It was Thor who approached her first.

Darcy’s mood had steadily worsened as the days passed, followed by an unease which hadn’t ceased since the moment she’d first smelled and tasered him (that had felt _good_ ).

Not three hours before, she’d been almost forced to make up a story and cover his sorry ass from SHIELD, and that’d been a pain (and yep, they were totally going to nail her for this, possibly as a mounted fish on a wall), and so she wasn’t in the best mood.

Darcy hesitated.

She was being unjust. Of course, Thor was arrogant and presumptuous. He had come from a race that historically reveled in the blood of her people (okay, not _really_ , but technically the Asgardians’ war had brought trouble to her people, so...). But it wasn’t really his fault all that had happened, and SHIELD was putting his hands in pies that really didn’t belong to them.

Thor had also mellowed quite a bit since whatever had happened with the magic hammer, but…

“You smell,” she blurted out.

Thor frowned.

“You smell like danger, and wind, and the last time someone like you visited this planet the Cold Ones were there, too.”

Thor’s confusion cleared. “You are of the Deep,” he stated. “I had no idea some of you still lived.”

Darcy nodded. She hadn’t expected him to recognize her race without the customary appearance. Especially since she’d stopped using the pool once he’d begun living with them. No sense in tempting Fate. “Yes. And you herald disaster, Asgardian.” She hissed back defiantly.

The frown was back. “I do not wish harm on this planet,” he assured seriously.

“And yet...” She stared into his eyes, chin raised. “What we wish and what happens are not always the same.”

She didn’t have to explain her reasoning much more, for not a minute later, she was blinded by immense light. Stars exploded in front of her and she shielded her eyes. The smell of overpowered sweetness and spice overwhelmed her. “Ippido have mercy, what is this?!” she exclaimed. “Another Star-man?”

It wasn’t. It was _four of them_ , with their powers and immortality, too.

If Thor gave her the creeps, these four made her feel weak. She had to run. She had to take Jane away and _hide her_.

Her subconscious was screeching at her. Immortals were sick on their own, _five immortals_ all together was madness. She could hardly see anymore, blinded as she was.

She sunk to the floor and literally crawled to her room, away from all the crazy, and padded on the floor until she found her sunglasses.

A quick glance downstairs showed that yes, while their presence was obnoxious, she could now see properly without risking a cornea flash burn.

“Why are you wearing sunglasses?” Jane whispered when she took a look at her.

“These people’s souls are trying to blind me, boss lady,” she whispered back.

“Oh. Is that a thing?”

“...it is now.”

The Asgardians were exactly the same as Thor. Boisterous, loud and at least ten times brighter than Jane.

Darcy didn’t like them, at all.

She felt she should be intrigued by the silver glow of Sif, or the vibrant red of the other men, but the smell and the stillness of it all really ruined it for her. It was like watching a beautiful rock. Shiny, but immovable and immutable forever. She was bored by the third minute.

And then, the Destroyer happened.

* * *

 

“I don’t want to say ‘I told you so’” she grumbled to Thor, as soon as she was  able to look  him in the eye. His brightness was burning at her skin. What. The. Hell. “But, _I told you so._ Your people are heralds of disaster, there is no other way you can look at it.”

Thor looked contrite and sincere in his apologies and Darcy felt sorry for him because the situation his friends were causing was terrible for him too. he couldn't imagine what a Crown Prince was to do when his brother went insane and decided to assassinate him for a shot at the throne (well, his brother actually was _on_ the throne now so maybe not too  long  a shot).

“I did not wish for any of this to happen, Lady Darcy,” he said, his deep voice and expression grave. “But I do accept that it is my fault the Destroyer ever came upon this village. And it is my responsibility, to see that Loki is shown the error of his ways.”

They rushed to the Bifrost rune (because the Einstein-Rosen bridge? It was a _thing_ , apparently.), and Thor looked at her -- really looked -- like he had that morning, when he had recognized her for what she was. “I trust you, to keep her safe.”

Darcy felt absurdly annoyed by it all. They had talked about this, hadn't they? Maybe the point wasn't clear enough to him. So she straightened from head to toe, and while she hardly reached his shoulders, she tried to appear as serious and intimidating as she could. “I look after what's mine,” she said bravely.

Erik choked, while Jane looked as if she'd missed something important. She _had_ , but that was not the point.

Thor nodded solemnly. And then he left.

And Jane was inconsolable for a while, and then determination made its way into her soul, and her light sparked anew. They would look for him and bring him back.

And as much as the idea of an Asgardian anywhere near Jane made her break out in cold sweat, Darcy could play nice. She would. For Jane.

Because Jane loved the stars.

And while Jane watched the stars, Darcy watched Jane.

**Author's Note:**

> So, I'm opening the book _now_ before you start screaming at 'caaanon'.  
>  Laeto and Ippido are two of the mermaids that tried to eat Odysseus. In mythology, the mermaids who tried to snare a human and failed were turned to stone and sunk into the sea forevermore, destined to watch as the ages went by unable to move. Later on, we see more mermaids in other myths as the ones that sorted the souls, which makes me speculate on a world where mermaids realized early on that going the "stone way" wasn't so brilliant and decided that yeah, they could go on and work with the souls without risking to turn into pretty statues.  
> So there's that.  
> And of course, there are mentions of Frost Giants (because mermaids do not make pretty icicles) and if you recognise the mystery item hidden in the fiction you win 3 points!


End file.
